


Blood and Brimstone

by KT_Perry



Category: Original Work
Genre: 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, Age Difference, Alternate Universe - 1910s, Alternate Universe - 1920s, Alternate Universe - 1930s, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Alternate Universe - World War I, Alternate Universe - World War II, Ambition, Angst with a Happy Ending, Artists, Bwwm, Crime, Crime Family, Crimelord, Crimes & Criminals, Drama, Drugs, Eventual Romance, F/M, Family Drama, Field nurse - Freeform, First Love, First Time, Fluff and Angst, Gangs, Gangsters, Gun Violence, Interracial Relationship, Money, Organized Crime, Period-Typical Racism, Period-Typical Sexism, Romance, Soldiers, Strong Female Characters, Strong male characters, Violence, dangerous themes, interracial couple, mafia, some smut, strong everyone
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-09
Updated: 2019-09-08
Packaged: 2020-10-12 23:09:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20572460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KT_Perry/pseuds/KT_Perry
Summary: They met after the great lunar wars, where she had been left with no one and nothing to come home to, in a healing world that considered her wanting.They had taken her in. Even though they were not human-not her people; they were bound by unshakable horrors.They cared for her; loved her, and she had loved them in return.One though, differently than the others.Ten years later, a threat to the family-her family, brings her back into dangers she had never thought she'd face again, and horrors of the like she had hoped she had left worlds away. Accompanied by an ambitious man, like no other, that she had only ever dreamed she would see again.But she is a woman now, not the child that had fled and left her life behind.





	1. Prologue — 10 years ago

_It was family._

_Only family, and yet they barely fit into the living room. The party warm, lively, and full of just-a-sip from drunken merriment. They had won the day. Dayne's ambitious moves, a few bumps and scratches, and a bullet wound or two; had been a small price to pay for the family's safety and future._

_For her family's safety._

_The only family she had left._

_Her shoulder ached and burned, but she'd cleaned it well. She had enough experience in the field to know the so long as she kept it honeyed and sterile, she was as good as healed. So was Dayne._

_Being shot had been something... Something terrifying and horrendously unbearable. The hot sticky feeling of blood. The burning agony of the scalding metal tearing its way into her shoulder. It was something she would remember for years to come, and surely wince at every reminder._

_But._

_When she had watched that man, raise that gun; heard the bang and watched Dayne stumble back into his brother's arms..._

_There was no feeling like it. Nothing so grotesque and horrible. No matter the number of soldiers she had tended to, limbs she had been forced to remove, boys she had been forced to pronounce too-far-gone in the wars._

_She had seen that spray of blood, his blood, and her world had stopped— her stomach had fallen through the cobblestones and into the earth... along with her heart._

_How was this some fickle crush? As Rosette had called it..._

_How was this feeling something to be teased about? Young as she was; there was nothing funny about it. It was terrifying._

_But that thought was for another day._

_Dayne was fine and well; they had both survived, and there would be enough money in their success, that worry would be a distant memory itself._

_Even now the pile of diamonds gleamed in all their splendour, sparkling in the light leaking in through the dusty window, clouded only from the smoke of cigars and cigarettes._

_She raised her hand to rub the ache in her shoulder away, but stopped herself. Her stitch work, in her own hazed pain, had been loose, and shoddy at best. Instead, to distract herself she turned to gaze at the man behind her._

_The man of the hour._

_He was a sight. Strong jaw, straight nose, hair a slash of ebony in the hazy room, eyes bright and clear as the Indian Ocean._

_He towered over her, even when leaning back against his mahogany desk—the most expensive furniture in the house— with a wide grin on his face._

_Watching the family celebrate around them, he was subdued and quiet in his pride, even though it had been his victory more than anyone's._

_He turned to her then, all too quick for her to look away, or pretend she'd been staring at something past him._

_His smile was warm, though, and she swallowed at the look when it brought bubbles and fireflies fluttering within her belly._

_It was terrible._

_She was a decorated field nurse, not a school-girl anymore. As much a Rosette would like to say otherwise._

_She had seen men die, hundreds if not thousands less than a year prior, and yet this one made her feel like that was a distant nightmare. Like she was just a girl._

_He set down his scotch a moment later to do what she had only barely resisted doing. Prodding her stitch work in his shoulder. His was much tidier than her own—_

_The realization hit her quick and hard, and she nearly snorted, before concealing her glee behind a frown._

_"My God!... Dayne!" She stared up at him, with a stern, appalled look. And pursed her lips._

_He sobered a bit— as he always did when the rare occasion that she seemed serious occurred._

_The only one, really, who took her seriously at all._

_"Yes?"_

_The room had quieted a bit at his deep commanding voice, as it always did, all attention suddenly on them._

_She ignored it, and his questioning looks, shaking her head. Lips twitching._

_"Don't move."_

_He didn't._

_She couldn't hold her grin much longer though, and her lips twitched again as she turned her back to him; lining up carefully with the broad plane of his chest._

_His brothers were watching all wearing variations of the same confused frown. God, they looked so similar. The only difference was the peace in their eyes._

_Dayne was tall enough to gaze over her head as she lifted a hand and dragged back the collar of her shirt. All the way back over her shoulder._

_She couldn't help the snorty chortle that escaped her mouth now, as she broke into a teasing grin._

_"John?" She called, he was already grinning, obviously seeing what she was seeing, "Do we match?"_

_Rosette's cackle was as loud and rapturous as the rattling starter to an old car next to him, her heavily pregnant belly bouncing with the movement._

_"Like a fookin set," John finally chuckled out, throwing an arm around his wife, His beer spilling down onto his shirt in his laughter, the room bursting back into boisterous celebration and chuckles around them. _

_The couple's youngest pointed and laughed, distracting John from dabbing his ruined shirt just long enough for him to threaten to 'throttle that bloody curly mop right off his head'._

_Everyone laughed even harder when the child continued, too much like his father to be deterred by a mere threat._

_All distraction died out, though, when Dayne's arms curled around her waist; and a breath from his own light, laughing voice tickled the hairs curling around her ear. His body leaning down over her, as she curled herself into the warmth of his chest. Of his scent. So alien, so familiar. And all his._

_"'Like a fooking set,'" he agreed._

_She grinned, she could not fight it, itching its way to her lips. Her eyes falling closed as he held her, leaning back against that expensive desk._

_His hand—the one he should not have been using—caught hers, tracing lines into her wrist and palm. His hand was massive and warm, but Pale and milky compared to the dark complexion of her own._

_"Let's not try to match anything else," she whispered, still smiling._

_Her chest felt warm, and something strong, and unwavering, and confident, held her along with his arms. And she realized she felt... safe there. Encircled in him. His heart beating against her back._

_Like they could take on the world._

_Like they had and they could again._

_Like he felt safer with her there too._

_"Nothing else?" he asked, and she opened her mouth, but closed it again._

_Only then did she notice the track his fingers were tracing, up and down her ring finger._

_He pressed his forehead into the back of her curls._

_They lingered that way a moment, his soft breathing, tickling the baby-hairs at the back of her neck. His warmth encasing her._

_Her heart stuttered when it came to an end, and he straightened and brought her hand slowly upwards over her shoulder—her eyes trailing its journey, to where it met the smooth curve of his lips._

_"Nothing else?" He whispered again against her hand, his eyes, warm and light as she'd ever seen them._

_Face inches from her own._

_"One day." She swallowed, turning to face him in his arms; settling her body against his._

_Her cheeks burned bright, as she pressed a kiss to his collar, carefully, like she was leaning in to check it._

_So quick and subtle, just a caress of her own, to the unfamiliar feeling of his warm smooth skin._

_Just for a moment._

_To encompass herself in the smoke and scotch scent of him, and let the world around them be forgotten, just for now... just for this moment, and maybe..._

_No one would notice._

_No one would see._

_"Maybe, one more thing."_

But that was years ago. A lifetime ago.

And things were different now.


	2. Prologue — 9 1/2 Years Ago

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A memory of their farewell.

_ “Nightmares?”_  
_ She shook her head, laying back against the new plush cushions. Her heart still thumping in the silence between his question._  
_ “Always the same one,” she finally whispered. Her voice sounded weak even to her. _  
_ Defeated. _  
_ And she had been, in this arena where she could not fight. There was no battle to win against her subconscious._  
_ She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes. Stinging now—a betrayal of her body against her._  
_ She heard the floorboard creak lightly, and pulled her hands away to find another outstretched toward her. _  
_ Their eyes met for a moment, and his were soft. Understanding. Almost unfamiliar in there openness. _  
_ And she found herself lost in them. Lost in this open door, that had always been shut tight and hard bolted. And now she stood at the threshold staring in. And they remained open._  
_ “Come to bed.” He whispered; his voice, a velvet caress of baratone in the darkness surrounding them. _  
_ A warm darkness now, with the heat of his hand so near her own._  
_ She stared up at him in question. She had no bed. All her things had been moved already. The chaise was her bed for the time being - until she boarded the train and left._  
_ Left._  
_ She was leaving him, and this house._  
_ Just this once. It hardly mattered._  
_ He loved her, that ruby haired, beautiful starlet. The woman who could rise with him to the top of the world. She would never be a shackle on his leg. _  
_ She would never be that woman, it had never been her place. It had never been a ‘them’. It had all been in her head._  
_ She nodded and dropped her hand into his; he tugged her up gently against him, catching her easily when she swayed from grogginess, and led her up the stairs to his room._

_ They only slept that night. And the next._  
_ The family said nothing. They didn’t notice, or didn’t care. _  
_ Maybe it was the thin walls, she thought once. They knew nothing was going on._  
_ Or maybe, they knew what she hadn’t— that he’d never been interested._  
_ Even now, it was hard to accept._  
_ If she woke up first, it was too the heat of his body wrapped around her, protecting her from the crisp winter air leaking in past the cooked window. That soft wafting scent of scotch and smoke, and his warm breath against the top of her head or her neck. _  
_ She’d never woken up so peacefully. Not even before the war. Or the accident. _  
_ And she would stare up at him and his youthful sleeping face, and wonder what he dreamt of; and if it was only good things like she did, when she was cradled in his arms._

_ Maybe she was to young, as Rosette had said. Maybe she was to immature to understand that what they had was not love. _  
_ She thought about it on the train, while the city disappeared over the horizon like the setting sun—her tears staining her cheeks and salting her tea as she stared out the coal-dusty window._

But things were different now, and that was years ago.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *not beta-edited*
> 
> *story subject to change when it is*

**Author's Note:**

> *not beta-edited*


End file.
